Trace Wins Celebrity Apprentice
Last Sunday, Trace Adkins was chosen by Donald Trump as the first All Star Celebrity Apprentice. This week, Trace joins Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton to talk about the five-week competition. He told Lon the reason he won: “I raised more money than he did, I thought my portion of the show was better than his, for God’s sake, I put Buddy Holly glasses on Gary Busey had had him sing Not Fade Away!”
What was the experience like? “They try to make it as arduous as they can. They try to break you. Working five weeks straight is part of it. You go in there knowing you’re gonna be tested and you have to be as tolerant as you can be, and it doesn’t come natural for me to be that tolerant of other people’s idiosyncracies, but you have no choice.”
When the game began, you were one of the two captains. You & Brett Michaels. And the first person you picked? “Penn Gillette. After getting there and meeting everyone, I thought if I was going to win it, he was the guy I was going to have to go through to do it. I thought he’d be the biggest competition. So I picked Penn first, I knew he was brilliant, I wanted him on my team, and I didn’t think they’d leave us together very long. From there, I started picking New Yorkers. If you’re going into a foreign land, you need people who know the terrain. It’s not that difficult to make sound strategic choices. Brett’s biggest mistake was picking Amorosa. I knew she’d slit his throat in two days.”
For the second to the last challenge, you brought in Hunter Hayes to perform for the folks. Talk about that day: “He delivered, and I knew he would. He’s legit, man. He can play, he can sing, he can write, he’s confident, he walked in that suite, and just floored everybody. I was very proud, but I wasn’t surprised, and neither was John Rich. To see the faces of the Foxwoods executives, they were thrilled by him.”
Was that the episode where you thought you were on the bubble? “Yeah, I thought probably sure. But I could have been gone on the South African one too. I thought I could have gotten fired on that one.”
Being on that show, now for the second time, puts you in front of a lot of people. How have you felt it? “They say it raises your Q-factor. The thing I notice is in airports. That’s the thing they say, ‘Hey it’s that dude from the Apprentice.’ So you know they don’t know you from anything else. So there’s an impact, but I don’t know it’s positive or negative. At least more people know who you are.”
Has anybody offered you a regular TV role? “There’s been some talk of a different type of reality show. But you can’t put any stock into it until it happens.”
I always figured you were going to win this because Trump figured he owed you one when you lost to Piers Morgan: “I don’t think so. He raised more money that I did, and that’s the bottom line with Donald Trump.”
Let’s talk about the ice cream you created in the final challenge. It’s Maple Macadania Mash-Up. We brought some in to day, and I thought it was tastier than Penns. How did you do it? “I kept telling our ice cream wizard to keep amping up the maple, hit me with more of it, and she kept intensifying it until I said ‘There you go,’ and it smacks you, but I love it.”
Did it not strike fear in your heart? “It did at first, but if it hadn’t been for the young lady who asked me questions, ‘what’s your favorite candy, what’s your favorite cookie,’ and there it was. The maple nut and macadamia. I think we came up with a new one. I’m gonna have to drive around the country eating it all year. Everywhere I go people will want to eat ice cream with me. I’m gonna weigh 420 pounds when I come back. Luckily I’m tall, so I can carry it!”
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